Regarding the Nov. 26 Heart of the News article ?A conservative Christian university where Muslims feel welcome?: My experience at Brigham Young University was inspirational on so many levels. Through the prayer part in every class, I was given the opportunity to be connected to my faith and practice my Muslim prayer, share and explain, and be accepted. As a Muslim woman in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints community, I have an everlasting educational experience.

?The fate of a Saudi woman on her way to Australia, where she has a visa and seeks to obtain asylum, teetered in the balance in Bangkok [on Jan. 7]...,? states an editorial. ?Amid Thailand?s apparent willingness to deport [Rahaf al-Qunun] back to Saudi Arabia, rights lawyers representing her failed to get a Bangkok court to accept an injunction against her repatriation, which could have spelled her doom. ?It is still unclear whether U.S. citizen Paul Whelan was indeed, as the Russian authorities allege, a spy, or whether he is the victim of mistaken identity...,? writes Mark Galeotti.

Vittoria Romero and her daughter Celia were celebrating with high-fives and big smiles on a bright but chilly morning this week: They?d successfully filled their compact car?s gas tank after less than 30 minutes in line. Across Mexico, people like the Romeros have been contending with hours-long bumper-to-bumper waits at the pumps, reduced bus transportation, and other daily inconveniences for the past two weeks. The fuel distribution problems began after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the closure of key pipelines in late December in an effort to curtail rampant fuel theft.

Hector Dias, one of some 400,000 federal employees who are being asked to work without pay, has a blunt message about the government?s partial shutdown. ?We should not be taken hostage of the political atmosphere,? says Mr. Dias, a Department of Transportation worker in Washington, echoing the concerns of legions of employees deemed too essential to be furloughed.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration, where employees are going unpaid amid a partial government shutdown, said on Monday that unscheduled absences among U.S. airport security officers rose to a record 10 percent on Sunday as the shutdown reached its 31st day.

U.S. President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani backtracked on Monday from earlier comments that Trump pursued a business deal to erect a tower bearing his name in Moscow throughout 2016, saying his statements "were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President."

British Prime Minister Theresa May sought to break the parliamentary deadlock over Brexit on Monday by proposing to seek further concessions from the European Union on a plan to prevent customs checks on the Irish border.

First-term Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California, a rising party star and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump's immigration policies, launched her 2020 campaign for the White House on Monday by touting her experience as a prosecutor.

One of 20 undeclared ballistic missile operating bases in North Korea serves as a missile headquarters, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published on Monday.